Youth Fitness Business Comparisons

Now, our industry is full of people who seem to enjoy taking shots at their peers. Almost like a sport, they feel somehow empowered and or compelled to lobby opinions at what other people have to say and cloak their oftentimes defaming commentary with “this isn’t personal”.

My ‘retort’ article is not anywhere near a ‘shot’ at John. I was just so intrigued by his thoughts and feelings on the matter, I wanted to test the merits of his conclusions based on what I know about developing young athletes.

And by ‘testing the merits’ I mean to decide for myself if I think his deductions are correct. Not whether he’s right – he believes he is and I respect that wholly.

Below are the enumerated reasons John has outlined as to why adults are more difficult to train. My thoughts are below each point in italics.

Young Athletes Coaching

I have seen a fair amount of discussion on the merits of individual long term training vs. team long term training. I will submit a later entry to compare short term vs. long term training. My question is: Why do any of these things have to be mutually exclusive?

All I want to do here is share some approaches I or associates have used in the past with my young athletes:

Whole team long term training:

The positives: There is a long term relationship where the team can get used to a certain approach. You get to interact with the kids possibly throughout the critical athletic development years. Additionally, kids get to train with each other, and build team camaraderie. This approach can make training more affordable, and possibly result in more revenue.

The negatives (dependent on number of coaches and approach): Less one-one attention and some movement difficulties can fall through the cracks. There is less flexibility of routine and adjustment to routine when training a whole team (though the long term part of it helps to ease that a little).

Individual long term training:

Positives: There is a long term relationship where the coach can closely monitor the student. Movement difficulties can be more easily addressed. There is total freedom in adjusting to what makes this particular child “tick”.